Back in April, the Washington County Water Conservancy District’s (WCWCD’s) Administrative Advisory Committee finally voted to recommend adoption of a Water Shortage Contingency Plan. That should have been the breakthrough moment.
Instead, here we are in September, and now we’re told the plan may not be finalized until the end of 2025. That’s after nearly four years of work and delay. And worse, we’ve heard this before; promises that a plan was “almost ready.” So, will it really happen this time? Or are we just kicking the can yet again? Frankly, this is unconscionable. It is shocking. And it puts every one of us at risk.
I want to give credit where it’s due: Conserve Southwest Utah leaders like Ed Andrechak and Karen Goodfellow have been sounding the alarm for months, calling for urgency and warning that delay means wasted water. And just this week, Mark Eddington of the Salt Lake Tribune published a detailed article highlighting the same concerns. They are right. And they deserve our thanks for raising their voices so clearly.
Four Years of Work, Still No Plan
WCWCD staff have been working on this since 2021. They’ve developed a drought model, prepared draft plans, and surveyed stakeholders. The professional staff are doing their job. The problem is this: they cannot adopt the plan without buy-in from the seven member cities. And the cities are dragging their feet.
The sticking points
These sticking points have been obvious for years:
- Enforcement – Who enforces restrictions and how?
- Rates – How do we structure drought water rates without wrecking city budgets?
- Growth – At what stage do we finally say “no” to new water-hungry development during a drought?
These are not new questions. And every year of delay means we are left without a plan, without clear triggers, and without the authority to act when drought conditions worsen.
Ivins Has a Plan… But We Can’t Use It
Ivins adopted its own drought plan in 2004. It was designed to follow St. George’s declarations of drought. But St. George stopped making those declarations years ago, rendering our plan useless. The truth is, no city in Washington County has a working drought plan today. That should alarm every one of us.
The Consequences of Delay
Conserve Southwest Utah correctly warns that if a plan were in place, we’d already be in stage two restrictions, requiring we cut usage by 20%. Instead, water use this year is higher than last year, despite one of the driest water years on record.
Consider this:
- Half of WCWCD’s water goes to outdoor irrigation.
- 75% of that irrigation water is used on grass.
- Our reservoirs are holding steady for now, but without a plan, they are just an emergency savings account we are draining with no discipline.
Multi-year droughts are not hypothetical. We do not have the luxury of another two years of “consensus-building.”
Delay Is Not a Strategy
WCWCD staff are doing everything they can to keep the process moving. But they need agreement from seven cities—and that’s where the delays are coming from. Some cities don’t want uniform restrictions. Others don’t want to explain tough choices to their residents.
Consensus is valuable, but delay is deadly. Without enforceable, countywide triggers, every city can drag its feet. And when that happens, the entire region suffers. This isn’t water policy. It’s gambling with our future.
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